I'm in love! With Jasper. With Connie. With Howie. With everything. ♥

I love the idea behind this book - a serial killer has a son and teaches him from an early age how to be a serial killer. Yes, it's horrible and my heart aches for Jasper whenever something from his childhood is revealed, but I like that someone explores what something like this does to a human being - the guilt, the brainwashing, the dreams, the education in being a con, never knowing if what you feel is true or if you are conning someone, fighting against the urges/views that have been forced into your head as okay even though they are not, the fear of turning into your father and killing someone and so on and so on.

I like that we see how this all impacts Jasper and his relationships with different people - Howie, his best friend who he met before Dear Old Dad got caught and stood beside him through all, Connie, his girlfriend who supports him and, if necessary, kicks his butt, G. William, the Sherriff who caught Dear Old Dad and in people in his school and hometown in general.

I like that, while there is some gore, the book isn't focused on the gore but on the psychological effects being the son of a serial killer and growing up the way he had to has on Jasper and the people in his environment. As Barry Lyga says in the interview at the back of the book: "The most interesting and gruesome things are what goes on in somebody's head. To me, the most horrifying thing in the book isn't what Billy has done to his victims, isn't what this new serial killer is doing to his victims. To me, the most horrifying thing is the flashbacks Jazz has to being a kid, the things Billy told him as a child, and the things Jazz remembers from being the child of a serial killer." This is so true!

Also, I like that it is shown what consequences and reactions people have when you are a relative of a criminal - like people accusing Jazz why he didn't stop his father or threatening him because of what his father did and so on. These relatives are victims of the criminal too.

There have been some things that I was a bit "Hmmm" about, like Howie kind of pressuring Jazz into getting tattoos for him and that Jazz would be able to live with his Grandmother after all what happened (and without being in therapy on top of all) but I can overlook this because the rest of it is so good.

Bonus points: Howie has a chronic illness and Connie is a POC. (And dear author? Don't you dare to kill off either of these two!)